Multi-million pound regeneration plans for the centre of Birmingham have been boosted by the announcement that HS2 Ltd — the company behind Britain’s new high speed rail network — is moving its operational headquarters to the city from London.
News of the Midland city’s biggest office let in years came just hours before the unveiling of the Birmingham Curzon Urban Regeneration Company, charged with reviving more than 140-hectares around the city’s proposed HS2 terminus. It’s expected the groundbreaking venture will pump at least £1.3bn into the local economy and create up to 14,000 jobs.
Modelled on the regeneration enterprises behind London’s 2012 Olympics and the Canary Wharf scheme, the company has already secured £30m in funding from the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP). That will be used as seed money to prepare the ground around Curzon Street and attract enough investment to build 6.5m sq ft of office and retail space and more than 2,000 new homes.
The city council’s director of planning, Waheed Nazir, said the regeneration body would include members from his authority, HS2, the west Midland’s transport company Centro and the local enterprise partnership. “With people like that around the table we cannot help but deliver the growth Birmingham needs,” he added.
Confirmation that HS2 is moving into the Two Snowhill office building, in Birmingham’s Colmore business district, came yesterday from transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin. The 100,000sq ft leased by the company will now undergo a major refit and be ready for its 1,500-plus staff sometime in 2016.
“The lasting impact of HS2 will, in the end, be determined by how successfully local authorities and regions use it as a catalyst to transform and develop not just their economies but also the look and feel of the areas it touches,” said HS2 chairman, Daid Higgins.
“The Birmingham Curzon Urban Regeneration Company will, therefore, be hugely important both for Birmingham and the rest of the West Midlands and also as an example to the rest of the cities along the route.”
Representing one of the biggest employment boosts for the city in recent years, the HS2 posts will include designers and surveyors — many transferring from London — who will oversee the building of the £50bn rail scheme. The move is also likely to create thousands more supply chain jobs as consultancies and engineering firms follow HS2 to the city.
“All this will create massive opportunities and challenges for Birmingham’s office market,” commented Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) chairman, Jan Thompson, who recently advised Deutsche Bank on its move from London to its new Brindleyplace headquarters.
“In the short-term, the removal of 100,000sq ft of office space will eat up available stock, which will then kick-start a much needed new wave of office developments.explained Thompson. “In the longer-term, companies and organisations which have been mulling over relocations within the city will really have to act quickly, or there’ll be no decent chunks of space available.”
Two Snowhill is now effectively full. The law firm Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co pre-let 185,000sq ft of offices and serviced office group, i2 Office, has the remaining 23,500sq ft. The block was jointly developed by Hines Interests Limited Partnership, on behalf of Hines European Development Fund II, and Irish developer Ballymore.
It is reported today that investment firm M&G is involved in talks to buy Two Snowhill. If the sale takes place the property is expected to fetch in the region of £155m.
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